Latest Coca-Cola/Keep America Beautiful Public Space Recycling Program Awards 3,250 Recycling Bins through 2017 Grants Helping to Achieve 1 Million Bins Donated Milestone
ATLANTA, Georgia and STAMFORD, Conn. (May 24, 2018) — The Coca-Cola Company and The Coca-Cola Foundation, with the help of Keep America Beautiful, The Recycling Partnership and The Closed Loop Fund, will donate their 1 millionth recycling bin this month.
For the past 10 years, The Coca-Cola Foundation has supported an annual The Coca-Cola Foundation/Keep America Beautiful Public Space Recycling grant program, which has donated public space recycling bins to more than 1,000 communities across the country. The Coca-Cola Company and The Coca-Cola Foundation also have awarded grants to The Closed Loop Fund and The Recycling Partnership to help expand curbside recycling and provide recycling education to residents in more than 500 communities. Through these combined efforts more than 730 million pounds of recyclables have been diverted from landfills.
The latest round of bin grants support recycling in a variety of public spaces across the country, from festival locations to city parks to university campuses to downtown streets. In Rochester, N.Y., city officials expect to collect more than 8,000 pounds of additional recyclable materials during this summer’s “Party in the Park” and “Summer Soul” Festivals thanks to the addition of 60 more public recycling bins.
In Baltimore, 20 new recycling bins in business districts will serve the city’s anchor institutions, including the Maryland Institute College of Art, Johns Hopkins University, Union Memorial Hospital and Loyola University.
And the University of Arizona Tucson has added 220 new recycling bins in academic buildings to help meet stepped-up waste reduction goals on campus.
Community recycling programs like these support Coca-Cola’s global “World Without Waste” vision, which aims to collect and recycle a bottle or can for every one it sells by 2030.
“While Coca-Cola and its partners have been working for decades to do our part to build more sustainable packaging and more effective recycling programs, it’s time to do more,” said Bruce Karas, vice president of sustainability, Coca-Cola North America. “The world has a packaging problem, and we like others have a responsibility to help solve it, so bottles and cans don’t end up in places where they don’t belong. That is why we have set a goal to help collect and recycle the equivalent of a can or bottle for every one we sell by 2030. The Coca-Cola Foundation and The Coca-Cola Company supported programs with Keep America Beautiful, The Recycling Partnership and The Closed Loop Fund, help improve recycling access, while also continuing to make progress towards our Coca-Cola System goal.”
The Coca-Cola Foundation/ Keep America Beautiful Public Space Recycling program addresses one of the primary barriers to recycling in public spaces – access and convenience. In addition to the grants, Keep America Beautiful provides technical guidance to grant recipients and organizations to help them set up effective, away-from-home and on-the-go recycling programs.
“To encourage people to recycle frequently, we need to make sure they have the proper bins available in as many locations as possible,” said Helen Lowman, president and CEO, Keep America Beautiful. “The support Coca-Cola has given us to continue with this grant program allows us to address this issue and create thousands of new opportunities for people to recycle in public areas across the country.”
Keep America Beautiful selects grant recipients based on their potential to collect the most cans and bottles as well other considerations such as the potential to leverage additional local investment in recycling infrastructure.
A full list of the 2017 The Coca-Cola Foundation/Keep America Beautiful Public Space Recycling bin grant recipients, as well as Keep America Beautiful’ s best practices guide, “Designing Effective Public Space Recycling Programs,” are available here.
A 2009 study conducted by Keep America Beautiful showed only 12 percent of surveyed public locations had infrastructure to recover recyclable items. This lack of recycling opportunities is reflected in a separate national survey conducted for Keep America Beautiful in 2013, in which 92% of respondents said they recycle at home while only 41% indicated that they typically recycle in public spaces. In addition to providing more convenient opportunities to recycle, The Coca-Cola Foundation/Keep America Beautiful Public Space Recycling program helps eliminate confusion with sharply designed, and clearly labeled, bin designs and labels.
About Keep America Beautiful
Keep America Beautiful, the nation’s iconic community improvement nonprofit organization, inspires and educates people to take action every day to improve and beautify their community environment. Celebrating its 65th Anniversary in 2018, Keep America Beautiful strives to End Littering, Improve Recycling and Beautify America’s Communities. We believe everyone has a right to live in a clean, green and beautiful community, and shares a responsibility to contribute to that vision.
Behavior change – steeped in education, research and behavioral science – is the cornerstone of Keep America Beautiful. We empower generations of community and environmental stewards with volunteer programs, hands-on experiences, educational curricula, practical advice and other resources. The organization is driven by the work and passion of more than 600 Keep America Beautiful affiliates, millions of volunteers, and the collaborative support of corporate partners, social and civic service organizations, academia, municipalities, elected officials, and individuals.
About The Coca-Cola Foundation
The Coca-Cola Foundation is the global philanthropic arm of The Coca-Cola Company. Since its inception in 1984, the Foundation has awarded more than $830 million in grants to support sustainable community initiatives around the world. For more information about
About The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) is the world’s largest total beverage company, offering over 500 brands to people in more than 200 countries. Of our 21 billion-dollar brands, 19 are available in lower- and no-sugar options to help people everywhere more easily control added sugar. In addition to our namesake Coca-Cola drinks, some of our household names around the world include: AdeS soy-based beverages, Ayataka green tea, Dasani waters, Del Valle juices and nectars, Fanta, Georgia coffee, Gold Peak teas and coffees, Honest Tea, Minute Maid juices, Powerade sports drinks, Simply juices, smartwater, Sprite, vitaminwater and Zico coconut water. At Coca-Cola, we’re serious about making positive contributions to our world. That starts with reducing sugar in our drinks and bringing new and different drinks to people everywhere. It also means continuously working to reduce our environmental impact, creating rewarding careers for our associates, and bringing economic opportunity wherever we operate. In fact, together with our bottling partners, we employ more than 700,000 people around the world.
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